Mumm 30 supremos gather for Pro-Am Cup

Tomorrow (Friday) will see the start of Mumm 30's Pro-Am Cup off Marseilles’ old harbour. A high profile and international group of skippers and teams will race all weekend.

Among the skippers are Kito de Pavant, the new celebrity as winner of this year's La Solitaire du Figaro, and also Pierre Loïc Berthet and his
Nantes Saint-Nazaire team, very dangerous competitors following their victory this year in Tour de France à la Voile. In addition there is last year’s winner: Vasco Vascotto, who also won the Cassis Cup in this class.

Finally Thierry Péponnet and Nicolas Charbonnier, will be there at helm of the team K-Challenge boats. Together this duo recently won the One Ton Cup in St Tropez, and this event forms yet more training for the America’s Cup 2006.

Alain Fédensieu, well-known local sailor from Marseilles, will be with Nicolas Charbonnier as the tactician on board. He had this role with Charbonnier when they won the One Ton Cup.

In total there will be 22 participants this year including Swiss, French, English, Italians, Israelis…

The boat of the City of Marseilles will have Dimitri Deruelle at helm (winner of the Primo Cup). There are also many Tour Voile entries such as
Bandol,
CSC ESSEC (2nd in the amateur rankings this year),
Ville d’Antibes, the English team of
Asterix, the Triga Swiss team (with the crew from
Ville de Genève, third in this year's Tour Voile), and Team Israël.